246 On the former Changes of the Alps. 



that "an entirely new creation had succeeded to universal decay 



and death." 



In speaking of the Alpine equivalents of the British Lias and 

 OoliteSj Sir R. paid a deep-felt tribute to Dr. Buckland, who thirty 

 years ago had led the way in recognizing this parallel ; and Leo- 

 pold von Buch was particularly alluded to as having established 

 these and other comparisons, and as having shown the extent to 

 which large portions of these mountains have been metamorph- 

 osed from an earthy into a crystalline state. In treating of the 

 cretaceous system it was shown that the Lower Green Sand of 

 England, so well and so long ago illustrated by Dr. Fitton, was 

 represented in the Alps by large masses of limestonej since called 

 Keocomian by foreign geologists. 



Emphasis was laid upon the remarkable phenomena, that every 

 where in the south of Europe (as in the Alps) the Nummulite 

 rocks, with the ^flysch' of the Swiss, and the 'macigno' of the 

 Italians, have been raised up into mountains together with the 

 Hippurite and Inocerami rock's, or the chalk on which they rest; 

 and hence it was, that before Sir R. made his last survey of the 



Alps, the greater number of geologists classed the Nummulite 



rocks with the cretaceous system^ and considered them both to be 

 of mediseval or secondary age. But judging from the fossils 

 which differ entirely from those of the chalk (except at the beds 

 of junction) and also from their superposition, he had referred 

 these Nummulite rocks to the true lower tertiary or Eocene of 

 Lyell. Beds of this age, though once merely dark-colored mud; 

 have been converted into the hard slates of Glarus with their 

 fossil fishes (among which eels and herrings first made their ap- 

 pearance) ; other strata of this date contain the well known fishes 

 of Monte Bolca; and others again have been rendered so crystal- 

 line amid the peaks of the Alps as to resemble primary rockS; so 

 intense have been the metamorphoses ! 



Dwelling for a few minutes on the atmospheric conditions 

 which prevailed after the elevation of the older tertiary, SirR- 1^^' 

 ferred that a Mediterranean and genial climate prevailed during all 

 the long period whilst the beds of sand (Molasse) and of pebbles 

 (Nagelflue) were accumulating under the waters both of lakes 

 and of the sea, and when derived from the slopes of all the pre- 

 existing rocks. The marine portions of the Molasse and Nagel- 

 flue contain the remains of many species of shells now living hi 

 the Mediterranean J whilst in alternating and overlying strata, 

 charged exclusively with land and fresh water animals, not one 

 species among many hundreds, including numerous insects, is 

 identical with any form now living. This point, on which he 

 first insisted on his return from the Alps in 1848, Sir R. had con- 

 sidered to be of paramount importance in proving, that terrestrial 

 life was much less endowed with the capacity to resist physical 



